


maybe we can heal (maybe we can be happy again)

by koifishthatwrites



Series: to fix what's broken [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Depressed Oma Kokichi, Fluff and Angst, Gen, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Killing Game Was A Virtual Reality Simulation (Dangan Ronpa), M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oma Kokichi Needs a Hug, Oma Kokichi-centric, One-Sided Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Ouma not Oma, Out of Character Oma Kokichi, POV Oma Kokichi, References to Depression, Sad, Sad Oma Kokichi, Suicidal Thoughts, also platonic oumami is a fucking go, but its there -freeform, he gets one but not really, lmao the kaemiu is there for like one sentence sorry kaemiu fans, tagging that with the other one just to be safe, well theres only a bit, yall already know i have no beta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27973988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koifishthatwrites/pseuds/koifishthatwrites
Summary: He is tired. The nightmares, the suffocating loneliness that never fails to claw away at his chest, the cries that haunt him no matter how hard he tries to forget them, the tears that spill no matter how hard he tries to keep them at bay, the guillotine of guilt and regret hanging over him— He is tired of it all.But the happy smile on his beloved’s face when he said he’d come to get him at breakfast stops him. He’d do anything to protect that beautiful smile he loves more than himself.Love is truly too dangerous.(Though, he suppose, it doesn’t really matter. Eventually everyone will start scorning him like they did in the past, he’ll go to sleep and this time, he’d make sure no one ever wakes him.)
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Iruma Miu (implied), Amami Rantaro & Oma Kokichi, Gokuhara Gonta & Oma Kokichi, Oma Kokichi & DICE, Oma Kokichi & Everyone, Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Series: to fix what's broken [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053170
Comments: 10
Kudos: 147





	maybe we can heal (maybe we can be happy again)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: looks! at! the! tags! bitch! :heart thing bc ao3 is an asshole and wont let me type it out:!
> 
> heyyy its yalls favorite authorrr
> 
> (jk jk... unless?)
> 
> istg i did NOT expect the last one to get three hundred hits in like four days

He wakes gasping and paler than the ever enclosing walls of his room from the nightmares that will haunt him to the end of his time.

His wheezes echo in the otherwise quiet room in a way that would be somewhat creepy if this were the first time he’d been woken up from a nightmare at— he glances at the carelessly left open window— four am.

For a moment, he just stares at the window engulfed in darkness, trying to get his breathing and thoughts under control. How easy it would be, to just stumble up to it and jump to the welcoming arms of sleep and fall with the comforting knowledge that he’d never wake up.

The wind would cut through as he fell, the slightly cold air of the middle of November that smells slightly salty but fresh would linger as the ground got closer and he closes his eyes, this time hopefully never to open them again.

Who knows, maybe if he’s lucky enough, the nurses will be too late and he’d already be falling by the time any of them realize what’s happening.

But his name means “small luck” for a reason. It’s the reason he is still breathing, alive and not in some casket under a grave that no one would visit.

Despite having slept for who knows how, the weary fatigue he felt prior didn’t decrease by an inch.

He is tired. The nightmares, the suffocating loneliness that never fails to claw away at his chest, the cries that haunt him no matter how hard he tries to forget them, the tears that spill no matter how hard he tries to keep them at bay, the guillotine of guilt and regret hanging over him— He is tired of it all.

But the happy smile on his beloved’s face when he said he’d come to get him at breakfast stops him. He’d do anything to protect that beautiful smile he loves more than himself.

Love is truly too dangerous.

(Though, he suppose, it doesn’t really matter. Eventually everyone will start scorning him like they did in the past, he’ll go to sleep and this time, he’d make sure no one ever wakes him.)

He stares anxiously at his uneven and chipped nails, sitting perfectly still on his bed and ignoring the dreary dread pooling in waves in his stomach.

* * *

When Shumai comes in with a wheelchair after his nurse rebandges his head, he is somewhat surprised,

_‘So it wasn’t a dream.’_ He thinks as he is wheeled away out of the room and into the hallway leading to the hospital cafeteria.

He tries to not look at the stairs that lead to the rooftop ~~the stairs he’d once climbed with the hope of death~~ and listen to what Shumai is saying.

(He doesn’t succeed.)

* * *

When he rolls in, the cafeteria falls silent. He can acutely feel people staring at him.

He struggles to keep his gaze downwards, not wanting to see the hate in their eyes so early in the morning.

* * *

No one sits with him.

(Shumai is sitting with him but for some reason, he can’t help but feel the detective doesn’t want to.)

It’s to be expected, and yet like all the things he expects, it hurts.

* * *

Until someone does.

Or rather, someone nearly three times his size, someone with hair as long as their waist, someone who’s bronze eyes shine with sympathy and kindness for him who doesn’t deserve an even a shred of it.

Kokichi stays frozen with shock as Gonta Gokuhara sit across him, the smile he once called dumb and naive still present on his face.

Shell-shocked, he notices the hush on the cafeteria is back.

As if noticing the attention on him, Gonta smiles, “Kokichi looked lonely so Gont- I went to sit with him!”

The others seem to accept that as an answer and Kokichi wants to scream.

Why? He screams internally, why are you so kind to ~~a mistake, a liar, a selfish murderer, a villain~~ someone like me?

He doesn’t write it out but seeing Gonta continuing to talk and smile away at him, it’s a damn near thing.

* * *

And then he’s back inside that cursed, damned to hell room where cries of an innocent continue to echo with the soft voice of his beloved whispering occasionally.

_(_ **_“You’re alone and you always will be.”_ ** _)_

Smiling the same lifelessly blank and hollow smile, he wonders how he hasn’t gone insane yet.

* * *

_D.I.C.E would be so disappointed in me,_ He thinks

He thinks of Zen’s disappointed stare, Ayami’s confused frown, Takeo’s angry glare, Tsutako shaking her head in disbelief, Neo’s clenched fist as he stares at him with poorly concealed anger and the baby whose face he doesn’t even remember anymore hiding away from him in obvious fear.

Their mixed voices echo a single sentence.

_“_ **_Murderer._ ** _”_

* * *

His nurse comes in again to check in on him and startlingly enough, she doesn’t look disappointed in him.

He stares at her, not caring of the annoyed glance she throws his way.

He can’t read her expression. It makes him wonder if he can get anymore useless.

* * *

He pokes at his all to stale lunch and wonders if the cries and whispers and ever constant flashbacks will ever stop.

(A soft, whispery that sounds too much like his(?) beloveds' voice croons _" **I t**_ _ **old you'd always be alone, murderer.** "_

He throws up the small bits of breakfast he'd eaten.)

* * *

He is wheeled away to dinner and this time, he doesn’t stop himself from staring at the stairs leading to the rooftop.

* * *

Just like morning, he doesn’t look anyone in the eye and just stares at his lap and his undoubtedly sweaty hands.

Once again, an awkward hush falls in the cafeteria the second he’s rolled in and he regrets agreeing with Shumai.

* * *

Dinner is a quiet affair.

Gonta sits with him just like in the morning and fills up the otherwise what would be an awkward silence between them.

Kokichi nods and writes answers down when he asks something, ignoring the traitorous voices in his head screaming that he doesn’t deserve this. 

(They’re right, of course. But he’s a selfish, selfish murderer.)

* * *

Then Amami-chan sits on one of the chairs on the side halfway through dinner.

This time, no one is affected, it’s almost as if they’d expected it.

“Hey, don’t you think this food sucks?”

Kokichi stares.

Amami-chan just smiles laxly as Gonta responds happily.

He looks away.

(He misses the casual friendship they had.

But maybe, just maybe it wasn’t gone forever.)

* * *

Amami-chan comes to visit him the next morning.

At first, he’s vaguely surprised. His nurse had just changed his bandages a few minutes ago, so maybe today’s breakfast is just extra early?

That is proven wrong when Amami-chan grabs a chair and plops down on it.

“Want some nail polish?” 

He blinks slowly, looking very much like a cat.

Amami-chan poorly stifles a laugh.

_-“Sure?”_

He smiles, “Alright, what color do you want?”

_-“Uhh purple is good.”_

The green haired man takes one of his hands and frowns.

“Your nails are chipped beyond belief, do you have a habit of biting them?”

He looks away, a slight blush on his way paler then normal cheeks.

Amami-chan simply sighs and starts to paint his broken, chipped nails.

Soon they have to go to breakfast and Kokichi stares at his nails the entire way.

(He doesn’t notice until way later that he didn’t even glance at the stairs.)

* * *

If the others notice his now painted to purple nails, they don’t say anything.

(He doesn’t realize he could see purple and green until days later.)

* * *

To his shock, Amami returns the next. And the next. And the next. And the next.

Soon enough, it becomes routine for Amami-chan to visit him and most surprisingly, he doesn’t dislike it.

(The cries and whispers quieten when he’s talking.)

* * *

He doesn’t ask why, he knows better than that, but the curiosity is there.

“—and then Momota actually jumps off the tree, the fucking madlad! Harukawa literally didn’t let him out of her sight for _days_. It was utter chaos and you would’ve loved it.” Amami-chan cackles, a grin of mad delight present on his face.

A small but soft smile sneaks onto his face. One he doesn’t even realize is there until Amami-chan points it out.

He, of course, looks away, hoping the green haired man wouldn’t see the tiny blush that only stood out more on his pale cheeks.

Amami-chan’s smile is soft and laced with something he can’t quite comprehend just yet, but it’s not bad.

(Many many years later, when they’re out of the hellhole called a hospital, will he realize that it was pride.

He will quirk his still pale lips to the same small but soft smile he smiled oh so many years ago on that day his older brother taught him how to smile, and look back at the memory.)

* * *

One day, he looks at Iruma and mouths _I’m sorry_.

She huffs and looks away but he thinks he sees a hint of something on her face.

(Later, she stomps over to their table and claims another chair.

Later, Kokichi sees pink and red enter his vision and feels content.)

* * *

“Oh my god Bakamatsu can step on me and I’d thank her.” Miu drolls.

Kokichi playfully rolls eyes, “Slut.”

He doesn’t even realize he said something until his entire table stares at him in utter surprise, which quickly turns into matching mischievous grins and _oh no_.

(By the end of the day, he is grinning and laughing as softly as he can to not damage his vocal cords even more. He’s also completely covered in a variety of food from head to toe.

It is absolute chaos around him with food flying everywhere and nurses panicking to try and stop them and he feels warm.)

* * *

Slowly, more people start to sit on what’s dubbed his table.

Slowly, Rantarou isn’t the only one who visits him anymore.

Slowly, he starts to talk more. (Not like before. Never like before.)

Slowly, colors start appearing again and the constant monotone starts to disappear.

* * *

But that, unfortunately doesn’t mean there aren’t bad days.

It’s on those days he can’t feel anything but the pulverizing pressure of the hydraulic plate crushing his limbs and squeezing the breath out of him. It’s on those days that the whispers reverberate through his skull like a never ending mantra. It’s on those days that the cries ring thunderously in his ears. It’s on those days he can’t blink without seeing fearful bronze and other gold full of hatred and cold apathy and the hydraulic press hovering over him. It’s on those days he can’t breathe and feels his room (prison) is suffocatingly small.

Today is one of those bad days right now.

He doesn’t realize he is biting his nails until Shumai gently grabs his hand and sets it down. It’s one of the rare few days Rantarou is busy so Shumai is spending time with him just before dinner.

(He hates that the thought of spending time with Shumai can make his heart skip a beat.)

“Bad day?” He asks softly and all Kokichi can do is just nod.

(Long, long ago, he’d laugh hysterically at the mere thought of being so compliant and mellow.)

Shumai doesn’t say anything else and just moves.

The detective sits on his bed, wrapping an arm around his small shoulders and pulls him closer. Normally this would make him flustered beyond belief and make his heart do at least _three_ backflips in a row but now, he is just too tired to care.

He snuggles closer and leans against the somewhat muscled chest, no doubt that's from Momota-chan and Harukawa-chan’s “training” sessions.

The whispers fade and the cries dissolve into the nothingness as his eyes fall heavy with sleep.

He feels warm, at ease, _happy_ in the arms of the one man who came closest to understanding him.

The man who ended the nightmare killing game.

The man who he'd tried to befriend in his own way.

The one man who he fell in love with.

And for the first time in so, so long, he falls asleep with a smile on his face and his small shoulders free of the weight of any guilt and regret.

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao finally gave the gremlin a hug and it doesnt even classify as a proper hug
> 
> btw the reason shuichi just kinda disappears for like half of the fic is bc he asked rantarou for help off screen. he's still pretty awkward with comforting and just talking to other in general and he knew kokichi didn't need that with the whole talking barrier between them so he asked ranty to stay kokichi instead of him
> 
> (that and that i wanted a reason to write platonic oumami-)
> 
> hope that made actual sense 
> 
> please comment if im missing any tags


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